Australia Day Council SA posts record loss amid allegations of financial mismanagement and security breaches
The Australia Day Council SA, which last week announced an investigation into allegations of financial mismanagement, made a record loss last year despite a substantial increase in overall income.
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The Australia Day Council SA has recorded a record loss despite a substantial increase in overall income.
The body that runs the Australia Day parade and the state’s Australian of the Year awards lost $309,000 in 2018/19, more than 10 times the loss of the previous year.
The report shows administration and office costs rose more than 500 per cent from $45,000 to $229,000 and employee expenses more than doubled for the year from $269,000 to $553,000.
Total income rose from $844,000 to $1.358 million but expenses blew out from $874,000 to $1.667 million.
The revelations are contained in the charity’s financial report that has only just been made publicly available, two months after it was lodged with the Australian Charities and Not-for Profit Commission (ACNC) - which was four months late.
The report warns that any loss or reduction in grants from the Commonwealth and Adelaide City Council could pose a threat to the organisation as a “going concern”.
As revealed in the Sunday Mail this week, the council has announced it will undertake an “independent and external review” into a series of allegations contained in the resignation letter of former staff member, Bill Bell.
The organisation’s office administrator of 10 years questioned the reliability of figures entered in the company accounts and alleged that there has been “breaches of security” within financial systems.
Mr Bell said the council board had experienced “sudden panic” when discovering the size of the loss.
He criticised the employment of additional staff he said the organisation could not afford.
Income from grants and sponsorship increased from $570,000 to almost $1 million.
Payments to suppliers and employees more than doubled to $1.5m and cash at the bank decreased significantly from $317,000 to $80,000.
The financial report has not been made available on the council website.
Two current board members appointed last year told The Advertiser they had never seen the financial report.
The Advertiser sent a range of questions to the council, including for an update of the current financial position.
In a statement the board said: “As you will appreciate, we have committed to an independent review and at this time it would be imprudent to pre-empt the outcomes of such enquiry. Once the review has been complete we will make a further statement.”
Long term members of the board include, interim chair and leading businessman Norm Schueler, Unley CEO Peter Tsokas and former Labor MP and long term mayor of West Torrens, John Trainer.
Adelaide City councillor and ‘Team Adelaide’ leader Houssam Abiad was council chair for three years until his sudden resignation last month after securing a high profile job as the city manager for the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
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The council received an unprecedented eight board resignations in March last year just a week after the conclusion of its financial year reporting period, that ran from March 1, 2018, to February 28, 2019.
The council has since announced it will return to a traditional reporting period of July 1 to June 30, which has the potential to see it release no financial statements for 16 months.
Last week CEO Jan Chorley defended the absence of the financial report being available on the council website given it had received “a clean audit” and had lodged its accounts with the ACNC, the reporting agency for all not-for-profit organisations.
However, the report - that was required to be lodged by August last year but wasn’t until December -only became available on the ACNC website this week.
In a statement, Ms Chorley said the reports were uploaded to the ACNC portal in December but had not been displayed due to “administrative issues that were addressed yesterday.”